The present invention relates generally to fiber optic communication, and more specifically, to interfaces between an optical fiber ribbon and optical waveguides on a substrate.
Typically, fiber cables need to have connectors fitted before they can attach to other equipment. Pigtails are a solution to terminate the fiber with connectors. From a conventional view, a fiber pigtail is a single short, usually unbuffered, optical fiber that has an optical connector on one end and a length of exposed fiber at the other end. The end of the pigtail is stripped and fusion spliced to a single fiber of a multi-fiber trunk to break out the multi-fiber cable into its component fibers for connection to the end equipment. Pigtails can have female connectors and be mounted in a patch panel to allow them to be connected to endpoints or other fiber runs with patch fibers. Alternatively, the pigtails can have male connectors and plug directly into an optical transceiver.